


Stolen Hearts

by MrProphet



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Gen, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-22 23:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10707741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	Stolen Hearts

It was cold that winter. I was cold. Even the rich were cold and I didn’t have their layers of furs and wool, just thin linens and the hot huddle of Salamanca’s body against my breast. I used to share a squat with a couple of other kids, but they weren’t kids anymore and now I was a third wheel. 

My parents gave me a fancy name and very little to live on. The only things of theirs I have ever valued are my father’s sharp eyes and steady nerve, and my mother’s quick fingers and soft step. He was a soldier, she a dancer and pianist; I of necessity found other uses for those characteristics. I was on the lookout for purses to lift and pockets to pick when I met De’Angelo.

I’d spotted a likely mark; a woman in a golden fur coat, some stupid charity worker, I thought. I’d seen her before, eyeing up street children and sometimes leading them away to… Well, I didn’t know where. I kept out of her way for the most part – there was something forbidding about her that made the absence of any guard or escort seem less foolish – but she seemed distracted that day and I thought I might risk a dip.

I moved towards her, flexing my fingers, but before I could close the distance to the woman a thin, powerful hand clamped down on my shoulder. Salamanca, wound around my throat in the shape of a marten, flinched away from the touch, shivered into a field mouse and dived into the collar of my jacket.

“I should not advise that,” a dry, whispery voice warned.

I turned and looked up into the hawk-like features of a tall, gaunt man in a plain, black frock coat lined with sable. His frame was spare, but it radiated power; a crow-dæmon flapped on his shoulder. I knew that I should have heard him coming, but his touch had taken me – and Sal – entirely by surprise.

“You would regret any attempt to rob that one. She would crush your little soul and… Gobble you up.” His dæmon flapped her wings and cawed softly.

I shivered at the implication of his words.

“What’s your name, boy?” the man asked. His eyes, as black as the crow’s eyes, bored into me. Sal quivered and urged me in a tiny voice to flee, but I could no more run from that gaze than I could have kept silent in the face of his questions.

“Tommy,” I replied. I didn’t tell him my full name; people look at me funny when I do that. It’s hardly the sort of name you usually find on the streets, but my parents had worked hard to fall from their high estate as totally as possible.

“Tommy?” he asked. “Thomas, is that?”

He made it sound like a good thing so I lied: “Yes,” I said.

He nodded. “My name is Thomas as well. Dr Thomas De’Angelo.” He did not need to say that no-one called  _him_  Tommy. “You seem a bright boy.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“What did you notice about that woman?”

“She was rich. Beautiful. And… dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“There was something about her. She wasn’t… weren’t scared,” I realised. I’d not analysed the feeling before. “Most of the rich folk who come down here are scared, even in numbers. She acted like the whole market full of people couldn’t hurt her if they tried.”

“No more they could, I’ll warrant. You see clearly, boy; I’m impressed. You should be wary of women like her – of women in general, but especially of women like her. She misses very little, that one.”

“Is she really a Gobbler?”

“Oh yes.”

“And dangerous?”

“The more so because she is righteous.”

I was confused by that. “I thought the Gobblers stole children. That isn’t… I mean, that ain’t right.”

“Right and righteousness are not the same thing,” he snapped. “I could teach you that and much more. Do you read?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Good. I would like to offer you the chance to do more with your life than snatch purses and die cold, hungry and alone in a tiny corner flat in Whitechapel.”

I was chilled by the precision of his prediction. He made it sound as if the outcome of my existence were a certainty. “You’re a teacher?”

He smiled thinly. “I am a practitioner of the beautiful art of alchemy, and I am looking for an apprentice, not a pupil. I would work you hard, but you should have a fair wage, board and lodging and you would learn. If you accept my offer I can guide you to a power that even that woman can not imagine; a force beyond your imagination. You shall bend the very universe to your will.”

I grinned foolishly. “I hope you won’t think I lack vision or anything, but you had me on ‘board and lodging’.”

“What does he want us to learn?” Salamanca whispered nervously. He really can be a wet blanket sometimes, but he’s a good influence. My mother, before she died, used to say that Sal was the keeper of all my goodness, and while I’d argue the all he’s certainly the one who makes me kind and generous and cautious.

“Forgive me a moment, sir,” I said.

“Of course,” De’Angelo replied.

I smiled and turned away. “Sal,” I whispered. “We can’t afford to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Tell that to the Trojans,” he retorted.

“We need food, Sal. We need warmth. Maybe we won’t stay with this De’Angelo. Maybe we’ll turn out to be wrong for his apprentice, but let’s at least get one warm night out of it.”

He sighed. “Alright, Tommy. But be careful. Keep your eyes and ears open.”

“Well?” De’Angelo asked. “Will you come with me?”

“We will,” I agreed.

He smiled, but his dæmon beat her wings and croaked furiously as though my answer had angered her.

*

De’Angelo had a large house. It was still in Whitechapel, but a much better part of the city than our pitiful little corner room. (De’Angelo was right about that detail, which was what scared me so). The house was dark but warmth permeated the air, which was more than could be said of the crow’s gaze, which still held me, black and hateful.

“The ground floor holds my study, the library and the kitchen,” De’Angelo explained as he lit an ugly, blobby candle formed from the reclaimed wax of a dozen other candles. It gave a dim light and let off wisps of evil-smelling smoke where some impurities had contaminated the wax. “You shall have no need to enter my study without my express permission, but if you agree to become my apprentice you shall have free use of the library and your duties will take you to the kitchen to assist Alice from time to time.”

As though she had heard him before he spoke, a slim figure emerged from the far end of the corridor. She was older than me, but still young and rather pretty and she smiled kindly at me. Her dress was well-made and of good material, but the dæmon at her heels was a soppy-eyed spaniel, marking her as a servant more certainly than her white apron. She took De’Angelo’s coat and stick; I could not bring myself to give her my threadbare jacket.

“Alice has a room behind the kitchen,” De’Angelo said. “You will  _not_  need to go there,” he added with a firmness I did not understand.

“The cellar is given over to my laboratory. Do not go down those steps without me, on your life.”

“Yes, sir,” I agreed.

“If you are to be my apprentice, you should call me Master De’Angelo, or simply Master,” he noted.

“Yes, Master,” I said, although it came hard.

“There are four rooms on the upper floor; my bedchamber and closet, the washroom and the room which will be yours. You will stay out of my rooms, of course, but I will not enter your room without cause. Alice puts hot water in the washroom every morning at six. She will make breakfast at half-past-six and you will be ready for your duties at seven o’clock. I shall prepare a timetable of study and chores later, but for now I will say only that you shall labour until six in the evening, with little rest.

“Is that too much for you, boy?”

I shook my head. “No, Master. I have no fear of hard work.”

“Good. Then Alice will show you to your room and find you some suitable clothes. My last apprentice…” The crow erupted from his shoulder with a raucous cry, spitting and cawing wildly. With mounting horror I realised that she was trying to talk… but that she could not.

“She’s got no tongue,” Salamanca gasped.

“Cruach!” De’Angelo bellowed. I could feel the power reaching out from him to cow his own dæmon. It was an appalling sight. Sal and I do not always agree, but we have never been set against one another like that.

Faced by De’Angelo’s terrible force, Cruach perched on the banister and shivered into stillness. Sal sprang up into my arms; he burrowed into my shirt as a weasel and nestled there, shivering.

“Forgive poor Cruach,” De’Angelo said. “We were captured by Skraelings during our travels and…” He shivered. “Cruach’s tongue was torn out. The pain was… excruciating. Cruach was driven beyond endurance and now suffers from black rages. I pray you forgive her, and I must bid you goodnight.” He lifted his hand to smooth Cruach’s ruffled feathers. “Only sleep will soothe her now.”

“I… of course,” I said. “Goodnight, Master.”

I watched him go, keenly aware of Alice standing behind me.

Sal was trembling like a leaf. “She  _hates_  him,” he murmured. “His own dæmon hates him. Oh, Tommy; what have we let ourselves in for?”

*

Alice led me up to my new room. It was huge; the bed was almost as big as my old squat and as soft as a cloud. It was also rather…

“Lacy,” I noted. “It’s not what you might expect of an apprentice’s room.”

“It was his daughter’s,” Alice explained. “She… There was an accident and Miss Tabitha was hurt. She had to move away to a sanatorium.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Alice looked away. “The room is warmed by the kitchen fires underneath,” she went on, as though we had never touched on the matter of

De’Angelo’s daughter, “but if you need something more I can bring up a cannonball for the hearth.”

“No,” I assured her. “This will be fine, only…” I gave the clean sheets a nervous look.

Alice smiled reassuringly. “I’ll draw you a bath in the kitchen, and perhaps a bite to eat?”

“Very good,” I replied loftily. “Thank you, Alice.”

“Don’t enjoy this too much,” Sal warned.

Alice smiled warmly. “Come down when you’re ready,” she told me.

As soon as she was gone I whooped and swept Salamanca into my arms. “Look at this!” I cried, holding him up in front of me. “Isn’t it amazing?”

He looked down at me with amber, feline eyes. “His dæmon hates him,” he reminded me. “His dæmon has no tongue. He has a maimed dæmon, Tommy; a maimed dæmon means a maimed soul.”

“So we’ll be careful, but Sal…”

“I know,” he sighed. “You remember what this was like and you want it back; I do too. I just think we should slow down and ask what the cost might be. Don’t get me wrong, Tommy; no-one thinks you’re more incredible than I do, but what does he really want from you?”

“An apprentice. A lab assistant. A trumped up skivvy. I don’t care if the pay’s right. At least he’s not after me for my body.”

Sal sniffed. “Don’t be naïve.”

I sniffed. “And you shouldn’t be so crude. Maybe he really does see greatness in me.”

“I hope so.”

I scratched his head gently. “Hey,” I whispered. “You want a bath?”

He purred at that.

*

Alice had drawn a huge copper up in front of the kitchen fire, surrounded it with a screen and filed it with steaming water. Aromatic bath crystals gave it a slightly oily tinge and a heady scent. A set of neat, black and white clothes lay on a chair beside the copper. As soon as Alice left me alone I stripped off my clothes and slipped into the bath; Sal sprang up onto the edge and slipped into the water as a sleek otter.

It was heavenly; the warmth seeped into my frozen bones and the salts tingled against my skin. I could almost feel the dirt rising from my skin.

“Alright,” Salamanca sighed. “This  _is_  good.”

We lay back, luxuriating. After a time, I sat up and scrubbed. I rubbed shampoo into my hair and watched the muck float away. God I was filthy.

“Rinse yourself off,” Sal suggested. “There’s a jug on the floor.”

I hefted up the jug and stood so that I could pour water down myself, rinsing my skin clean.

“Your food’s ready,” Alice told me. “Sorry it took so long, but… Oh.”

I snatched up a towel and wrapped it round myself.

“But we’re a little short-staffed,” Alice finished. “I see you’re a little… short-staffed yourself.”

I blushed. “I’m not… I mean, you shouldn’t…”

“Well, be that as it may,  _sir_ , we can discuss while you eat. Get yourself dressed and come to the table.” She winked at me. “Don’t be scared. I don’t bite.”

I dried myself off and dressed; the clothes were a pretty decent fit and of good quality, although a little worn in the knees and elbows. Alice was waiting at the table, along with a plate of bacon and mushrooms and a hunk of rye bread. She had suggested speaking while I ate, but I ate ravenously and had not a moment or breath left to speak until I was done.

“You were hungry,” she noted, fetching more bread. “You’re older than you look, aren’t you? But that smooth cheek is deceptive.”

“I’m fifteen,” I told her.

She grunted softly. “That’s quite old to have a dæmon still changing so freely.”

I shrugged. “If you say so.”

“Miss Tabitha’s Orichalcum fixed on a woodpecker when she was thirteen; almost five years ago now,” she added distractedly. “Locky wasn’t quite set in his ways until I was fourteen, but he’d been fixed on some form of canine for almost three years by then.” She set a hand on her spaniel-dæmon’s head and ruffled his ears. “What’s your name?”

“Tommy.”

“Your real name, I mean.”

I looked down at the table. “Tamara,” I confessed. “Tamara Gyrfalcon.”

Alice nodded. “Well, if you take my advice you’ll thank the master kindly in the morning and then leave; you don’t want to make an enemy of him, but he’ll be livid if he finds out you’re a girl.”

“Why?”

“Because he thinks of women as inferior. There was only one woman he ever had time for and she died giving him a daughter; he never forgave her.”

“Forgave her for what?”

“For not dying giving him a son.”

I shuddered. “Why does he hate women?”

“Something to do with alchemy.” She shrugged alone. “He might tell you more if he believes you’re a boy, but I’m not exactly his confidante, you’ll understand.”

“Right.” I was squirming again, keenly aware that this servant now had absolute power over me. It wasn’t a feeling I liked. “And what if I want to stay?”

“On your own head be it,” Alice sighed, “but I won’t give you away. Master De’Angelo does not inspire great loyalty.”

“Clearly,” I said acidly.

*

Actually, I didn’t find this to be the case. My gratitude towards De’Angelo bred an early affection and more than this I found everything that he had to teach me fascinating. I soon learned that Alice was right about his distain towards women, but this did not apply to me and he told me that I was a natural. Certainly it all felt very easy and natural; there were basic principles and everything else flowed naturally from them.

I almost gave myself away early on when I revealed that I could read – not exactly de rigeur for a street urchin – but he accepted my claims that I was taught by a charitable priest and took it as a blessing. I probably could have just told him how my father lost his fortune and killed himself, and how my mother wasted away in poverty, but any questions about my past risked him learning my secret. After a few months I was studying more than I was doing chores and learning more and more each day. A whole new world was opening out before me and I actually began to despise Alice for keeping my secret.

  
“Why don’t  _you_  tell him?” Sal challenged me one night.  _He_  adored Alice still, thought her ‘the salt of the Earth’, and kept trying to convince me that De’Angelo was dangerous; not that I ever doubted he could be.

“I think he already knows. He must know. Nothing gets past him.”

“Oh, of course not.”

“You have no faith.”

“Not in him!” Sal snapped.

“It isn’t  _him_  you have a problem with,” I snipped. “It’s  _her_.”

Sal was furious. He transformed into a crow and beat his wings angrily at me. “Oh course it’s her!” he cawed. “But how can you trust a man whose own dæmon hates him? You’re such a fool.”

“How dare you?” I demanded.

“Quiet down,” Sal cautioned.

I glowered at him.

“And you shouldn’t be so mean to Alice. She likes you.”

“I don’t care. She’s untrustworthy, you know that. She’s keeping secrets from her master.”

“ _Your_  secrets.  _Our_  secrets.”

“Oh, shut up,” I snarled angrily.

“If you were thinking clearly…” he began.

“Oh, don’t start that again,” I warned him. “I respect and admire him.”

“You love him!”

“I…” I was surprised to find that I could not voice a denial.

“You know it as well as I do, you just can’t admit it to yourself.”

“And why shouldn’t I love him?” I demanded. I suppose I can admit now that I was a touch defensive about it. “He’s been very good to me. To us.”

“But it’s hopeless,” Sal told me. Of course, he wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know already, but that didn’t mean I was any more willing to hear it.

“Sal…”

“He thinks you’re a boy, Tommy. He’s not interested in you, and if he is and he’s just playing it close, then he’s going to be damned disappointed when he learns the truth.”

I sniffed disdainfully. I was acting like an ass at the time; I can admit that now. “ _If_  he doesn’t know already. Anyway, you’re getting crude, Sal. Locky is a bad influence on you.”

With a shiver, he transformed again; it was difficult for him to do so now, and became more so with every day I yearned after my master. This time he changed into a moist-eyed spaniel, just to aggravate me. Oh, the shame if he were to stay that way, I thought. “Better a spaniel than a crippled crow,” he challenged.

I turned my back on him and lay down to sleep. I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. For one horrible moment I found myself thinking that I’d be happier with De’Angelo if Sal were as mute as Cruagh.

Sensing my feelings, if not my thoughts, he cringed away from me. I felt terrible and reached out to him, but he flinched away from my hand. A violent shudder ran through me and I did not sleep well that night.

*

The next day, Sal didn’t mention the row; nor did I, but I brooded on it in silence. Alice sensed it when she crept up to help me dress.

“These are getting harder and harder to bind up,” she noted as she pulled my bindings tight. “Sooner or later he’ll notice.”

She was right. As a pauper on the street I’d been skinny; with proper food – even on De’Angelo’s frugal budget I was eating ten times what I had been – and the passing of nine months I was filling out embarrassingly. It was even more humiliating that I had to turn to Alice to help me tie them down.

“Maybe he’ll like what he sees,” I retorted tartly.

Alice gave a derisive snort. I clenched my fists in rage, knowing that she was right. If womanly curves appealed to him, Alice’s were far more womanly and far more appealing than mine. I was, of necessity, putting my faith in intellectual compatibility.

“Be careful, sir,” she sighed. “I’d not care to answer for what might happen if he found out you’d been tricking him.”

“I haven’t…” I blushed.

“Of course not, sir; not my place to comment on such a thing. Best suit today, sir,” she reminded me before I could retort. “Master wants to make a little celebration of your birthday.”

“Yes. I  _know_. Why must you treat me like a child?”

“I’m sorry I’m sure, sir,” Alice sniffed. She looked startled, almost as though I had lashed out at her. She finished the binding and left me to dress myself.

Sal bit me on the hand, almost hard enough to draw blood. “You didn’t need to say that,” he told me.

“What? Why does she lecture me all the time?”

“Because she loves you,” he told me. He spoke slowly, as though I were an idiot. “You’re like a sister to her and she enjoys that; it stings her hard when you snub her.”

I sniffed angrily. “I didn’t encourage her to befriend us.”

“No. She’s just a good, kind person who needs someone to look after. We were  _lucky_.”

I turned away to dress and to think over the coming celebration. I had been quite surprised by Master De’Angelo’s desire to mark my birthday; no-one had ever done that before and he didn’t seem the kind of person who would normally remember a person’s anniversary. Yet he had been very keen when he learned that I was to turn twelve (well, sixteen, but who – apart from Sal and Alice and Locky - was counting and who would believe a sixteen year old boy had so little stubble) and insisted that I have a proper celebration.

“You look nice,” Sal noted coolly.

“You look sleek.” I picked him up and his otter-shape coiled in my arms like a warm, furry snake. “I thought you hated being an otter out of water.”

He gave me a pitying look.

“You’ve fixed?” I asked.

“Of course,” he replied. “I was waiting for you to decide what you wanted to be and the only reason I could do that was because you were, in your way, still an innocent.”

“Then… what changed?”

“You wanted to hurt me,” he replied in a whisper. “You wanted to hurt me for  _him_. You’re not an innocent anymore, Tommy.”

I had been beginning to feel good. I stopped. I didn’t apologise; there was nothing to say.

*

“Ah, Tommy; welcome, and a happy birthday to you.” Master De’Angelo sat in his armchair by the fire. Cruagh perched on the mantelpiece, glowering at me with her cold, black eyes.

“Thank you,” I replied; I hoped I wasn’t blushing too obviously.

“Sit down; have a brandy.”

“Thank you!” Master De’Angelo’s brandy was jealously guarded. This was a special occasion indeed.

I sat down opposite him and Sal settled protectively on the back of the chair. He poured a generous measure into a snifter and passed it to me, and then another for himself. We held them for a good minute before he raised his glass to savour the aroma. “To your good health, Tommy,” he said.

“Good health,” I replied, and we both drank. I had never drunk brandy before – and I never have again – but the scent of it reminded me of my father and for a moment I nearly succumbed to sentiment and wept.

“I have enjoyed teaching you,” De’Angelo told me. “You’re an excellent student and a hard-working apprentice. I shall miss you.”

“Miss me?” I asked. My heart turned over in my chest. He knew; he was sending me away because he had learned my secret.

“When you are gone,” he explained.

“Gone?” My head was spinning. There was a soft thump beside my chair; I look down and saw a limp pile of sleek fur. “Sal?” I tried to say, but now my mouth didn’t seem to be working properly.

“Pick him up,” De’Angelo said, “and follow me.”

I obeyed without thought. He rose, snuffed out the candles and led the way to the cellar stairs. He took a small, iron key from his pocket and unlocked the door; I could feel some vast force dissipating form the lock as he turned the key.

I followed him into the laboratory. I had just about realised that I had been drugged, but I was still eager to see what lay beyond the forbidden door with its terrible defences. For the moment, however, all I saw was darkness; first the darkness of a windowless, unlit room, and then the rising blackness of unconsciousness.

*

When I woke up I could move of my own free will again, or I could have done if I had not been strapped to a bench with iron bands and leather cuffs on my wrists and ankles.

“Sal?” I croaked. I could sense him nearby, but not turn my head far enough to see him.

“Oh dear,” De’Angelo sighed. “I had hoped you would remain unconscious until I was ready.”

I felt ill. “What do you want from me?” I asked.

“Why, nothing at all,” he replied. “You are of no consequence.”

“Then…”

“It’s me,” Salamanca explained. “He wants me.”

“Your Sally is right. You see, I am in need of a new dæmon. Cruagh and I are sadly incompatible.”

“But she…” I tried to shake my head. “What do you mean?”

“She’s not his,” Sal whispered.

“The runaway apprentice…”

“Did not run away,” De’Angelo finished. “Despite his best efforts to relieve me of my secrets, my valuables and my daughter, he did not even leave here with his life. Unfortunately, poor Tabitha’s heart was already his and she tried to interfere. She did not pass the portal of this laboratory.”

“The power in the door. It killed her?”

There was a rattle of machinery and the table beneath me tilted so that I was almost upright. Now I could see the laboratory’s machines; great anbaric generators and capacitors, and a rather more arcane collection of glassware and chemicals. Cruagh hunched in a cage, glowering in fury. I still could not see Sal, but De’Angelo stood in front of me with a sad smile on his lips.

“You really do have fine senses, lad,” he sighed. “It is a shame to destroy you, but something of your potential will live on in me once Sally and I are bound.”

“Sally?” I asked stupidly.

“I am going to break your bond to your dæmon; a simple enough process, but what is rather more elegant is the operation to reattach the bond to myself, once I am free of Cruagh.”

“Sal will fight you!”

“Perhaps, but the others never did. Only Cruagh, and that more because of the love her boy bore for poor Tabitha than for the boy’s own sake. With the bond replaced, their loyalty is soon won.”

“Others?” I asked in a croak. “How many others?”

“Nine; each buying me another nine years of life. I am one-hundred-and-twenty-six years old.”

“But Tabitha disappeared only  _six_  years ago!” I protested.

“Ah. Alice has been talking I see. She was very fond of the girl, having been her nursemaid most of her life. Yes; I should normally have waited longer before disposing of you, but to be honest, Cruagh’s contrariness is beginning to wear on me.”

I found myself shaking with sobs. “Oh God help me,” I wept.

“Do not fear,” he said. “The end will be swift. I’ll not let you live without your dæmon; that would be cruel.”

I was little consoled as De’Angelo began a long incantation in Greek. As he chanted he threw switches to send anbaric current rippling through his machines and began to anoint me with foul smelling oils. He walked around behind me and did the same to poor Sal.

“Now,” De’Angelo said, and I felt the power tearing at me, digging into me and feeling for the bond which tied me to Salamanca, my living spirit, heart and conscience.

I closed my eyes and waited for the end. I felt the power of the machines and the elixirs tearing at me and I sobbed in pain.  
“If you fight it, it will hurt more,” De’Angelo warned.

I had no thought of fighting, but the pain still grew.

“How are you doing this?” he demanded, which came as something of a surprise as I wasn’t aware that I was doing anything. “You are just a child; how can you resist me, boy?”

“I don’t know!” I screamed.

And then I heard a laugh. A long, familiar laugh of pure joy.

“Sal?”

“Oh, beautiful life!” he cried. “Oh, wonderful!”

I opened my eyes as De’Angelo stumbled towards me. His hair stood on end in the charged atmosphere and he seemed to be in pain himself. Cruagh was beating her wings against the bars of her cage in a frenzy.

“What are you doing, boy?” he roared again.

And then I saw what Sal had seen. Ironically, it was De’Angelo who taught me about metaphysical polarity. I threw my head back and laughed out loud.

“What is it, boy?”

“No!” I cackled. “No!”

“No what?”

“No! Not boy.  _Girl_!”

He reeled back in abject horror. “No!”

“Yes!”

His face seemed to collapse. “Oh, God,” he whispered; I saw the words on his lips, although I could not hear them. “Cruagh!” He turned and lurched towards the cage, but his movements were awkward and clumsy and he knocked the table, spilling the cage onto the floor.

“Come here, bird!” He staggered around the table. “You and I are stuck with each other for a little…”

In a flurry of wings and talons and flashing beak, Cruagh flew up from the floor and lunged at De’Angelo’s face. He beat at the bird with his hands and I felt bile rising in my throat; it sickened me to see anyone struggle so with his dæmon; it was like watching a man cut into his own flesh, but a thousand times worse, for he was assaulting his soul; or rather the soul that he had stolen.

And then he staggered back into a back of switches and capacitors. Abaric force flashed around him. The lights died and a smell of burning wire, meat and flesh filled the air.

In the dark I heard a body fall.

“Sal?” I asked. My voice was wavering weakly.

“I’m here, Tommy,” he said.

“Thank God,” I sighed, and then I blacked out.

*

I woke when the door caved in, only to pass out again.

I woke again when Alice cut me free and I fell into her arms.

*

I woke a third time in my bed with Sal curled up on my breast.

“Good morning, my sweet,” he growled fondly.

“Good morning, my heart,” I sighed happily.

Not long after, Alice entered with a breakfast tray. She set the tray on the bed and sat beside me. Locky jumped up with us and I hadn’t the heart to rebuke him.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I would not leave you,” Alice assured me.

We ate breakfast together and then chewed over our next move.

“The house goes to Tabitha,” Alice told me. “She might let us stay.”

“Tabitha is dead,” I told her sadly. “He must have buried her wherever he buried his apprentices. I’m sorry.”

Alice hung her head. “I… I have thought it, sometimes. So, what do we do?”

I thought for a moment. “You told me once that I could pass for an older girl,” I said. “Could I pass for Tabitha?”

“Perhaps,” she agreed.

“Tommy…” Sal cautioned.

“It’s not just for me,” I assured him. “I want to look after all of us. We can do good, I think.”

He looked into my eyes and into my heart and nuzzled my hand in approval.

“I think we can stay here, Alice,” I said. “Don’t you?”

She smiled at me. “Yes, Miss Tabitha.”


End file.
